German Drug Maker Apologizes to Victims of Thalidomide - New York Times

LONDON â€" Decades of campaigning by victims of thalidomide, a morning sickness drug, have taken a new turn, with the first apology in 50 years to the victims and their families by the drug’s German manufacturer â€" and an incensed rejection of the apology as too little and too late from many of those it was intended to placate.

The apology was issued on Friday by Harald Stock, chief executive of the Grünenthal Group, a family-owned pharmaceutical company that marketed the drug in the 1950s and early 1960s. It was withdrawn in 1961 after it was linked to birth defects, including shortened arms and legs, and in some cases no limbs at all, that campaigners say affected 10,000 babies around the world, mostly in Australia, Canada, Europe and Japan.

The apology came in a speech Mr. Stock delivered in the Rhineland town of Stolberg, the company’s base, at the unveiling of a thalidomide memorial, a bronze statue of a limbless child.

Addressing the victims and their families, particularly their mothers, he said the company wished to “apologize for the fact that we have not found the way to you from person to person for almost 50 years.”

“Instead, we have been silent, and we are very sorry for that.”

According to an English translation of his remarks that appeared on Grünenthal’s Web site, he added, “We ask that you regard our long silence as a sign of the shock that your fate caused in us.” As for the company’s delay in moving beyond its previous expressions of regret for marketing the drug to a direct apology to the victims, he said that in recent discussions with victims and their families, “we learned how much it is publicly desired that we express our deep regrets to those affected by thalidomide.”

Although thalidomide, a powerful sedative, was never approved for use by pregnant women in the United States, some victims are American.

One is Berrisford Boothe, 51, an associate professor of art at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., who described himself in a telephone interview as one of 26 known American thalidomide victims. He said he had been born in Jamaica with severe disabilities in both hands and arms, and had had a “long and isolated journey” as a child growing up in Jamaica and later the United States.

 In Jamaica, he said, “African belief systems were very much in effect. So when my mother had me, it was seen that it was because she had done something wrong in life, and that is how she was judged â€" openly. So was my father. It ruined their marriage, and it shaped my life.”

Mr. Stock said the company had carried out all the tests on thalidomide before it was marketed that were possible given the scientific knowledge available in the 1950s.

But the storm of protest the apology provoked from thalidomide victims and groups that represent them suggested that the apology had done little to assuage the anger and hurt accumulated over decades of campaigning for a full acknowledgment of thalidomide’s harm, as well as for commitments to more generous levels of compensation.

“It is over 50 years on since the thalidomide tragedy â€" why now?” said Freddie Astbury, chief consultant at Thalidomide U.K. Agency, which represents people affected by the drug in Britain, where nearly 500 victims survive. He said British victims had received some compensation from the government and from distributors of thalidomide, but not enough.

Mr. Astbury, 53, who was born with no arms and no legs, said he believed that one reason for Mr. Stock’s speech was greater global awareness of issues affecting the disabled, manifested by the success of the Paralympic Games, currently drawing sellout crowds in London.

He pointed, too, to a pending class-action lawsuit in Australia that legal experts have said could result in new compensation awards for thalidomide victims running into tens of millions of dollars.

“We are glad the apology has been made,” Mr. Astbury said. “But when you are disabled, it costs a lot of money. We are in our 50s, we need care. We need adaptations in our houses and cars, for starters. So if they’re serious, let’s get around the table and talk financial help.”

Sandy Macaskill contributed reporting.